Already Beginning
Already Beginning
Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved. Psalm 80
Yearning for God’s shining light in places of darkness is theme that runs through Advent. It is a fitting symbol for those of us who inhabit the earth’s northern hemisphere, where this time of year coincides with a season of diminishing daylight. While there might be excitement about the first snowfall and Christmas parties, many of us also dread the thought of driving home from work or school in the dark evenings for the next several months, and we eagerly anticipate the return of long summer days. The bulk of winter is still ahead of us, with all its dark and icy obstacles, making us perhaps more ready to pray these words of Psalm 80.
Preacher Barbara Brown Taylor would like us to reconsider this imagery, however. She asks, “Where did we get the idea that darkness exists chiefly to be vanquished?” Yes, there’s plenty of biblical support in both testaments for our associations of darkness with confusion, ignorance, sin, judgment, and punishment; and of light with knowledge, truth, and life. But Barbara Brown Taylor writes:
This strikes me as a problematic teaching on the verge of Advent, the church season of deepening darkness, when Christians are asked to remember that we measure time differently from the dominant culture in which we live. We begin our year when the days are getting darker, not lighter. We count sunset as the beginning of a new day. However things appear to our naked eyes, we trust that the seeds of light are planted in darkness, where they sprout and grow we know not how. This darkness is necessary to new life, even when it is uncomfortable and goes on too long.[1]
The way we enter into the season of Advent may remind us that darkness is not to be primarily feared or just suffered through but that in darkness may be the beginnings of mysterious and wonderful new life. We can remember that God is the God of both light and darkness. Christ is present—near to us—in all that we encounter.
Physics tells us that light and darkness cannot coexist at the same time and same place. But faith tells us that we can see with the light of Christ even in the darkest places. I hope that our Advent season together gives us space to practice that different way of seeing, noticing what surprising new life is being formed right now in our world. With the prophet Isaiah we see God gently leading us like a shepherd. With John the Baptist we question the way things are and envision a society oriented to God’s dream. With Mary we see a world turned upside-down, as lowly ones are lifted up in blessing. This is Advent. It is a time for waiting, to be sure, but it is also a time to rejoice in what is already beginning.
I watch for your light, O God, in the eyes of every living creature and in the ever-living flame of my own soul. If the grace of seeing were mine this day, I would glimpse you in all that lives. Grant me the grace of new sight this Advent. Amen.
[1] The Christian Century, November 29, 2011.